The Middle East Is Brutally, Dangerously Hot Right Now

You might think it’s hot in your A/C-laden apartment, where your modern conveniences are occasionally struggling to maintain a comfortable enough temperature for proper blanket-draped Netflixing, but you have no idea. The current heat wave engulfing much of the Middle East is downright unfathomable, seemingly a terrifying anomaly to those in the States. When the Iranian town of Bandar Mahshahr soared past a heat index of 165 degrees at the end of July, many were boggled by the astronomical figure.

In fact, a heat index of 165 degrees is more than worthy of such boggling, as the official heat index chart developed by R.G. Steadman back in 1979 stops at the 136 degree mark. This, of course, means that the current temperature in Bandar Mahshahr is literally off the charts:

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the brutality of the future of hot weather is hammering down upon citizens and inspiring equally confounding measurements. The Jordan Valley is clocking heat index figures of 118 degrees, while Baghdad’s actual temperatures are reaching into the 120s.

Meanwhile, our planet is also facing a glacial retreat rate that has reportedly doubled over the past ten years. Even if the widespread use abuse of fossil fuels is halted immediately, many glaciers are expected to continue suffering additional loss of ice at dramatic rates. “[The current rate] is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century,” this latest study’s lead author, Michael Zemp, tells The Guardian. “Exact measurements of this ice loss are reported from a few hundred glaciers only. However, these results are qualitatively confirmed from field and satellite observations for tens of thousands of glaciers around the world.”

This is the part of the article where I stop, hit publish, then drink myself into oblivion as I watch Interstellar again and say aloud to no one in particular: “Damn, Christopher Nolan. Damn.”